Foreign schools in PH not the solution

THE idea — or more like a wish — that good foreign universities could open satellite campuses or branches in the Philippines has been floated for the past 20 years. One reason cited is that it would save money for well-heeled Filipinos wishing to study overseas. Another is that the developing economy can already afford to host these foreign universities on Philippine soil.

The University of Nottingham in the UK has branches in Malaysia and China. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business has a campus in Singapore. And New York University has a full-blown satellite school in Dubai, offering courses from undergraduate up to the MA and PhD levels.

But notice the commonality among Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. They are rich countries, with families able to afford the tuition and other school fees of these satellite schools. While the fees in these satellites are less than what is charged in the home schools, they are still steep. Nottingham in Malaysia charges at least $10,000 per year in tuition alone. The fees at the satellites in Singapore and UAE are much higher.

Moreover, these countries also have stable political conditions, strong internet connectivity, efficient transportation networks and good infrastructure. The shape of their social class structure is an onion, with a small group of wealthy people and a small group of poor people, with the widest social class belonging to the middle class. Whereas the Philippine social class structure has always been shaped like a pyramid.

In short, we could dream with all our might, but these satellite schools won’t be open here. We know of one foreign university that sent a delegation to Manila to look into opening a campus here. What met them were horrible traffic jams, weak internet connectivity, a small percentage that could afford the fees — and a long list of requirements before a foreign company could start a business here.

Corollary to this is the proposed foreign ownership of Philippine schools, which is contained in the proposed Resolution of Both Houses 7 that is now being deliberated in Congress. Teachers and education personnel do not agree with this proposal.

The alliance called Teachers, Education Workers and Academics Against Charter Change (Teach) said that opening up Philippine schools to 100 percent foreign ownership would not solve the problems of the country’s education system.

“The problem has been caused by decades of insufficient public funding for education, low salaries for teachers, perennial backlogs in instructional materials and facilities (classrooms, libraries, barangay reading centers, internet, etc.), stunting and malnutrition among our children… These are just a few of the perennial problems,” the group said in a statement.

It said that allowing full foreign ownership of schools may force some small- and medium-sized private schools to shut down, “which can consequently cause labor layoffs and displacement of students, especially in areas that are underserved by the public schools.”

“Rather than open up our schools to foreign ownership, the Philippine government should be reminded that improving the quality of education is a state obligation,” it said.

Teach said that the “genuine global competitiveness” of Filipino students could be achieved not through this route but through “good management and optimal use of our own resources to continuously improve our education system.”

It is indeed important for our education system to be benchmarked with global standards. But it is also equally important to be “responsive to our communities’ needs and [do things] primarily meant to serve our own national development.”

“We can still engage in internationalization — without 100 percent foreign ownership of schools — by engaging in mutually beneficial academic linkages, faculty and student exchanges, and through studying abroad to focus on best practices, which we can adapt to the Philippine situation,” Teach concluded.

We have mentioned in this space our RX for Philippine education: increased funding for the Department of Education, higher salaries of teachers, reduction of class size to 25 students, supplying one textbook (or one e-book) per student, building classrooms, library reading centers for our students and communities, and stronger internet connectivity for online and hybrid learning.

There was a time in the 1960s when Asian students came to the Philippines to study at its good universities. But that time has passed, and we are now the laggards in Southeast Asia. We should overhaul the education system before it’s too late.